When
it comes to Lohengrin, a more cautious director would seek to downplay
rather than actually highlight any associations that might be made
between Richard Wagner and the Nazis. It's an issue however that is hard
to avoid, since the question of German nationalism lies very much at
the core of the opera and, regardless of it certainly formed a view of
it that Hitler and his adherents took in another direction. Olivier Py,
directing for La Monnaie in Brussels, however tackles the issue head-on ...in a roundabout sort of way.

In fact, Py even takes to
the stage before the start of the opera to explain why he sets his
production in 1945 at the end of the war when Berlin and much of Germany
was lying in ruins. Mainly it's because he believes that Wagner's
Lohengrin is not just a nationalist display, but a warning of where such
sentiments can lead. Wagner can't be entirely exonerated for his
antisemitism, for a sense of jingoism in his works or for their and his
family's later association with the Nazis, but there is certainly a
case that Lohengrin is a work of artistic and cultural expression that
does consider the disastrous future impact of nationalistic sentiments
that can take art and culture and twist it toward personal and political
interests.

Certainly Olivier Py and his regular stage designer
Pierre-André Weitz's touch is all over the La Monnaie Lohengrin. It
works in contrasts of black and white with little of shading in between.
On one side we have Elsa and Lohengrin in pale blue, Lohengrin even
associated with angels, while Ortrud and Friedrich von Telramund are all
in black. King Heinrich incidentally (and somewhat negligibly) is
dressed in grey. Py's Catholic or Christian faith may well play a part
in reducing Lohengrin to such stark divisions, but it's perhaps more a
case of emphasis as they are already there in Wagner's work. Ortrud
certainly appeals to the pagan gods Wotan and Freia in a way that
"allows evil to enter this house" as Telramund describes it. Is it a
lack of 'faith' that leads to the ideal of the German nation being
destroyed from within? And is this inevitable corruption of a pure ideal
not indeed what Wagner's opera is all about?

Well, it's
perhaps a little more complicated than that and it's certainly not as
'black and white' as it looks in the La Monnaie production. Firstly,
there's the setting of Lohengrin, which as Py indicated, appears to take
place in the ruins of the Third Reich, in a burnt-out theatre that has a
platform at the front and the rotating ruin of the building behind.
It's hard to imagine a 'straight' playing out of the legend then, and
indeed the early indications point to a little bit of reinterpretation
with the suggestion being that it is Ortrud who has choked the child
Gottfried, the future ruler that would have taken Brabant to glory. Py,
as he often does, introduces other obscure quotes, symbols and messages;
"Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland" (Death is a master from
Germany) on a wall, Ortrud painting a thick black cross, Elsa a white
cross in chalk. Lohengrin's duel with Telramund in on a chessboard
(black and white) rather than with swords, although a battle between
factions takes place in the background.

It's hard to see
any real connect between Py's 1945 setting of the work and Wagner's
setting of the medieval legend, but that could well be intentional,
showing a disconnect between a glorifying vision of Germanic culture
(contrast this with the rather ideologically vacuous 2016 Dresden production)
and the reality of the inglorious conclusion that awaits when it
appropriated towards what Py describes as "the aesthetisation of
politics". That kind of reading is certainly heavily supported by the
rather meta-theatrical set of Act 3, Scene 1. The pastoral idyll
behind the massed chorus of the people of Brabant in this burnt-out
theatre is nothing but a rolled-out backdrop that the stagehands lift,
the set rotating to reveal a sentiment that is built on a framework of
German romanticism and idealism, represented by dusty statues, busts and
monuments to Schiller, Holderin, Casper David Friedrich, Goethe,
Novalis, Schlegel, Grimm, Heine, Carl Maria von Weber and Beethoven,
with even what might be a Nothung buried in the stump of a dead tree.

There
are a lot of ideas and ideals here that never quite seem to gel
together into something entirely coherent in a way that works
hand-in-hand with the opera itself, but the essential points are valid
and well made. The lack of faith in the ideal even by as pure a spirit
as Elsa (who Py aligns with a view of Wagner that Elsa represents the
'volk') who has fallen under the corrupting influence of the likes of
Ortrud and Telramund, means that Lohengrin refuses to be the figurehead
that leads the forces of King Henry the Fowler into battle against
Hungary. Ortrud certainly hammers home the point of ideals being
corrupted in her final words: "Erfahrt, wie sich die Götter rächen, von
deren Huld ihr euch gewandt!" (Learn how the gods take vengeance on you
who no longer worship them!). In case that message isn't delivered
forcefully enough by Elena Pankratova, the fact that it is uttered
amidst the ruins of 1945 makes it hard to ignore the implication that
you could also see Lohengrin as a substitute for Wagner foreseeing and
denying responsibility for the misuse of his art that the Nazis would
put it towards.

Pankratova, as it happens, gets that
across with absolute conviction in one of the strongest performances
among the cast here, but even if not everyone is up to her level, there
are no weak performances or anyone who lets the side down. Andrew Foster-Williams might not have the same strength of personality or
voice, but that suits a dominated, wheedling portrayal of Telramund and
it's an effective performance. Ingela Brimberg mostly meets the
challenges of the role of Elsa and her voice likewise complements that
of Eric Cutler as Lohengrin. Cutler is almost Italianate in his phrasing
and lyricism, if not quite to the extent of Piotr Beczala (at Dresden).
With Klaus Florian Vogt's monopolisation of the role in recent years
however, we know that a lighter higher voice can work well, but it's a
romantic-heroic role that allows a wide range of interpretation, and
it's always interesting to see what a new voice can bring to it.

It
felt like it was more Alain Altinoglu's conducting of the La Monnaie
orchestra that was a little stiff, not really succeeding in capturing
the romantic lyricism of the opera or finding a way to connect it with
the perhaps harder edged tone of the production - but as ever it's hard
to give a fair assessment of that from the compressed audio reproduction
of a live streamed broadcast. There are moments however that capture
the more militaristic and Germanic side of the work well, and some fine
contrasting moments of warmth and sentiment, as in the lovely warm low
brass of Lohengrin's regret in having to reveal his identity. It's an
interesting production, one that does try to engage with the issues
surrounding Lohengrin and its subsequent history, and indeed even look
at it as an opera that looks towards the future, but inevitably in those
circumstances - much like Hans Neuenfel's recent Bayreuth production - it
doesn't feel like it gives a true sense of the opera as Wagner may have
intended it.